If you have ever had a failure of your hydraulic pump, the first thing people will say is, I told you not to buy that pump; the best hydraulic pumps are….. Just enough reason to want to throttle them, and as it is you are feeling pained enough as is. Besides getting something unsuitable for the job at hand, there are typically 3 typical and major reasons for hydraulic pump failure.
You really would like to know the warning signs to proactively stop a failure in its tracks and be able to try taking preventative measures to limit the chance of an expensive failure occurring within your hydraulic system, resulting in expensive hydraulic repairs.
Top 7 reasons why they fail:
- Firstly overheating: Keep the oil temp down and have the correct amount and size oil reservoir.
- Contamination: Creates damage to pump and blockage to the system— change filters often
- Improper Viscosity (too low will break down at lower temps and too high can cause fluid friction).
- Aeration: Air in the system
- Shock loading/ unloading: Overloading a system
- Cavitation that is caused when high inlet restriction allows the dissolved air in the oil to escape, causing cavities within a liquid
- Pseudo cavitation, where the Oil will only foam when air is introduced to the oil from an external source—atmosphere
So fundamentally a Hydraulic Pumps is a mechanical device that converts mechanical power into hydraulic energy and then generates flow with enough power to overcome pressure induced by the load it has to bear.
So then, when a hydraulic pump operates, it performs two main functions. The first is a mechanical action that creates a vacuum at the pump inlet, which allows atmospheric pressure to force liquid from the reservoir into the inlet line to the pump. Then the second, which is a mechanical action delivering the liquid to the pump outlet and forcing it into the hydraulic system.
